


Hearts on Sleeves and Everything Inbetween

by ATrueDonaldist



Category: BNA: Brand New Animal (Anime)
Genre: Canon Rewrite, Family, Fix-It of Sorts, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Queerplatonic Relationships, Self-Indulgent, Tags Are Hard, Tags May Change, canon compliant but not really?, just... a couple. a lot of scene rewrites don't worry the main story is untouched
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:35:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25238572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ATrueDonaldist/pseuds/ATrueDonaldist
Summary: When he first meets her, he thinks that she's something akin to a fireball.Bright, burning passion, a spit-fire temper, and a child-like sense of wonder that threatens to burn down everything he's worked for.A real recipe for disaster.And yet somehow, she manages to teach him more about love in a year than he did in a thousand of them, and isn't that just something only she could ever manage to do?
Relationships: Kagemori Michiru & Ogami Shirou, No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 118





	1. Chapter 1

When he first meets her, she's a spitball of fire that threatens to burn the city down.

He’s there watching over them, his people, in a time of peace and happiness, and he lets the music and the laughter drown everything else out.

In his reverie, he barely notices the girl that runs straight into him.

She says something—something he really doesn’t listen for, but he shakes his head and disappears into the crowd to get a better view of the festivities.

She barely leaves an indent on his mind, but then he’s pulling her up from the explosion and demanding her confession of ruining the festival.

In her indignation, she spits right back at him and he drops her when he realizes there’s a third party involved, and again, pushes her out of his mind in favour of more important matters.

He finds them, the _traitors_ in the alley and tries to kill them, but “tries” is the keyword because she’s here, _again_.

She tugs and nags and hisses at him, and doesn't even think twice about sparing the beastmen that betrayed their kind, even when they threatened her, and other people's lives.

He’s bemused, and a little annoyed, but she seems young so he lets it go.

And then she has the _gall_ to tell him that she's a human. Looking like _that_.

“It’s true!” She hisses vehemently behind him, and he sighs heavily, simply telling her to follow.

It’s going to be a long, long night.

* * *

Gem tells her what he already knows, but it doesn’t stop her from bristling and pouting about it. At the very least, she’s quiet at night and doesn’t disturb anyone.

When morning comes and he drops her off at city hall, he expects her to do as she’s told and stay in line. It’s logical, and she needs her residency verified.

In hindsight though, that was a desperate wish that he never should have entertained, really.

He doesn’t see her again that day until she’s behind bars in a cage housing children that would be sold to the highest human bidder, screaming and ranting about something that he can’t clearly discern.

He doesn’t make a move—not yet. There’s still not enough proof to pin them, to make sure they’ll be arrested for their crimes against their fellow beastmen. He knows this. He’s lived by this rule for years.

Still.

She yells at him and throws her I.D at him, tears in her eyes as her words both simultaneously cut through him and slip past him at the same time.

His eyes go over everything—the human in the picture, her name, her species—and he goes still.

 _Human_.

Her voice pitches higher and he looks at her, tears streaming down her face, and thinks, not for the first time:

She’s going to burn down the city and everything else with her, if she remained free to roam.

* * *

He’s gone over the student I.D probably too many times, scrutinizing its every detail, noting the authenticity of it.

She’s human. He _knows_ she’s human, and she has proof.

She’s claimed she hates all the beastmen in this city, and wants to be rid of it, and _he_ feels the same way about _humans_.

He should kill her while he has the chance, wipe his hands, and be done with it.

And yet.

_And yet._

“Why are you doing this?!” is what she yells from behind the door and the multiple objects in front of it.

 _Because, for some reason, I can’t bring myself to kill you when you’ve technically done nothing wrong_ is what he thinks.

“Because your very existence is dangerous,” is what he says instead, and deals with the aftermath.

Barbara arrives and tells him about a bombing, and then it _feels_ like a bomb explodes right next to his ear the next minute.

The smile Barbara gives him radiates consequences that not even _he_ would get out unscathed from, after that, so he lets her out. Begrudgingly.

She’s still loud and unapologetic, pointing at him with the fury of a young puppy, but they’re both surprised when Barbara speaks up about knowing of her presence and he can’t stop his look of surprise when she grounds out that she won’t stay hidden.

It’s _stupid_ though, and he tries to get it through her thick skull, even with that look on her face that dares him to say another word—and then Barbara tells him to let her help, and it’s out of his hands.

The mayor shoots him a look, one he doesn’t acknowledge, and takes the fragments of the bomb from her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure how many chapters this is going to be, but I want to go over the entirety of the series so I'm thinking probably 5-6 chapters in total?  
> Thanks for taking the time to read :D!


	2. Chapter 2

She’s quiet on the rooftop for the most part, and it’s nice. He figures that it’s important to know about it, so he tells her about the Sylvasta company and the thoughts of both humans and beastmen on it.

Then she asks him why he accepted the job when he only does things for beastmen, and internally, he sighs. Externally, he tells her that he can’t disobey her, and that seems to mollify her, so he gets to work.

The police get to the bombs and take them out with no casualties thankfully, but Kuro comes pecking at his side and he realizes just  _ why _ Kuro is being an annoyance when he sees the multiple missed calls from an unknown number.

The look Kuro shoots him isn’t reassuring either, so he curses and doesn’t wait for the police to follow.

He finds her in an alleyway, cornered by gang members, throwing her phone at the leader with less than stellar results. He’d have to teach her how to face danger better late—ah. Where had that come from?

He shakes his head firmly and turns back down to analyze the situation between her and the gang, noting the number of beastmen and their species.

An easy fight, to be sure. They wouldn’t stick around if a couple of their men became unconscious.

When they close in on her, he doesn’t hesitate to step into the fray.

A few punches and a kick later, like he had predicted, they flee the scene with not much fanfare.

He turns to her and tells her that it’s good he got here in time, and finds himself surprisingly sincere when he apologizes to her when she grounds out how she had attempted to call him multiple times.

“Why were they after you?” he quickly steamrolls on, not giving her a chance to acknowledge his apology. She gives pause at that, and her eyebrows draw together as they walk out of the alleyway.

“I’m not sure. It might be because I saw them behind a Medicen truck loading… something?” Her voice tapers off at the end of her sentence. She probably didn’t have enough time to eavesdrop completely on them.

The look she gives him is a clear question in itself: “who were they?” so he complies.

They don’t get far in their conversation though, when an explosion goes off in the distance—right in the Medicen building.

Shit.

He takes off running, and he doesn’t even have to look back to know that she’s following him, like she always seems to do.

“You go back and stay at the Beast Co-op—”

“No way! I’m not going to  _ sit still _ and wait for it all to blow over,” she shouts behind him, and he resists the urge to face-palm.

“It’s  _ dangerous _ .” He growls, and hopes that maybe this time, she’ll get it through that thick skull of hers.

It doesn’t.

“Fine. I accept it, then.”

He blinks, and slows his pace slightly. Not much, but enough for her to catch up to him and be side by side with him.

A fierce glare has made its way on her face, and she speaks with conviction.

“I used to be human—but right now, I’m a beast-man. That much is true,” she pants, and she  _ really _ shouldn’t be trying to talk while running, but he holds his tongue because she isn’t done.

She clicks her tongue, “but human or beast-man, I know I can be useful, and you’re not going to stop me,” and she flashes a quick smile at him.

“Besides—since I’m a beast-mean now, that means you’ll protect me, right?”

And she pulls ahead of him, taking advantage of his shock, a trail of giggles following in her wake.

... _ she’s an absolute pain, _ he muses irritably, and doesn’t think about the amused smile that’s made his way on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is why I didn't tag it canon-compliant :,)  
> While I adore BNA, I do acknowledge that the story is a bit weak, and a lot of times, I find myself wondering "what just happened" in some scenes, like the one where she tells him that she "accepts it". It doesn't make sense to me, so I tried to amend it a bit, and you'll see more changes as we go along.  
> Also: remember how I said I wanted to do 2 episodes per chapter?? Well... that definitely isn't happening, whoops?  
> Anyhow, thank you for reading!!


	3. Chapter 3

When they enter the room that the bomb had exploded in, it’s a _mess_.

Mechanical parts are strewn about, discs and computers littering the floor they step on, and she flinches from the crunch of glass that comes from beneath his feet.

The doctor, Yaba—wipes his sweaty forehead hastily, and he refrains from commenting.

Instead, he walks up and asks to investigate, because there’s no way that he had missed this bomb when he scouted out the others. He didn’t just _miss a scent._

Yaba wipes his handkerchief across his forehead _again,_ and tells him to do whatever he wants, so he does.

He morphs into his animal form and kneels down on the ground, ignoring her audible wince as more glass crunches, and inhales.

People. Beast-men. Moving in the room, but…there’s no outliers. No new scents that entered the room—and it _clicks._

He stands abruptly and whirls towards the door Yaba just left in, hackles rising despite himself.

“Shirou-san? Did you find something?” comes her voice, inquisitive but pensive, and he nods in both her and the investigator’s direction, his expression darkening.

Time to face the culprit.

* * *

They find Yaba in his office, face down on his desk, somehow sweating even _more_ than before. He clears his throat and doesn’t comment on how the doctor flails for a second before one again trying to pin financial compensation on the police.

“We couldn’t find a scent at the scene,” Tachiki starts off calmly, eyeing Yaba for any sudden moves.

“I have a keen sense of smell, I’m sure our good investigator can tell you,” he offers offhandedly, and watches as the beast-man in front of him starts to lose any semblance of hope he had left in his eyes.

“Only a specific chemical can erase a beast-man’s smell completely. One that can be produced in these labs,” Officer Tachiki slowly walks forward, keeping his eyes on Yaba. “And Ogami-kun has told me that your hands haven’t had any scent on them since the explosion.

He watches Yaba’s eyes flit back and forth between himself and Tachiki.

“Yaba-san, why don’t you come with us so you can give us your story at the station?”

There’s a moment of silence where Yaba seems to consider his options. His eyes look around, as if looking at something else—shit.

“Tachiki—!”

It’s only through sheer instinct itself that he grabs hold of the rhino’s horn, feet digging into the ground as he struggles to keep him from moving further.

“Shirou-sa—ack!”

“Don’t move! If anyone takes one step, I’ll snap this girl’s neck right here,” a scraggly, some-what high-pitched voice shakingly threatens beside him, and he can only curse the scent erasing formula for erasing the presence of a fifth person in the room.

His eyes flicker to where the chameleon doctor’s tail has her choked, eyeing the way she claws and jabs at the tail to no avail with a grimace.

His moment of hesitation leads to a punch to the face that throws him into the back wall, concrete crumbling around him as he struggles to gain his bearings, barely hearing Yaba’s command for “Mimura” to run—probably the chameleon.

The shatter of glass, a moment later signifies that Yaba must have taken the short way out.

He staggers to his feet and shakes his head. If only there wasn’t that scent-eraser— _no._ This wasn’t the time to think about that.

“Go after the other doctor, Tachiki,” he growls out, not waiting for an answer as he jumps out the window himself, barreling down towards the rhino speck in the bridges below.

To his credit, Yaba only manages to look surprised for a few seconds before he thrusts his horn upwards—a mistake, but an attempt nonetheless.

He grabs the rhino’s horn and glowers down at the figure below him, trying in desperate vain to shake him off. He draws his hand back and punches Yaba straight in the gut, watching with satisfaction as the rhino doubles over in pain.

He grabs his horn and lifts him high above himself, the man flailing in surprise.

“For you, a beastman who has lost his pride.” his voice comes out in a deep snarl, one that gives Yaba pause in his movements, “you have no use for this horn anymore.”

And just like that—it sets off a new franticness to the doctor’s actions as he flails harder than before, begging and pleading for him to not snap off his horn— _anything_ but his horn.

Meaningless lies and empty promises.

There’s a clean _snap!_ and Yaba falls to the ground, twitching, reeling over the loss of his pride.

He stands tall as the police come to arrest Yaba, but doesn’t miss the way they itch and prance about. A telltale sign of nervousness, and considering the situation above…

Fuck.

He, for lack of a better term, bolts, and not for the first time wishes that he had wings. Coming down was far, _far_ easier than going up, like how birds would say—it’s easier to fall than to fly.

And then he looks out the window.

* * *

He loses track of what exactly happens after that.

Before he could even _think_ about what he was doing, suddenly there was a broken window that wasn’t there before and a building with one less wolf inside it.

He sees her, flailing in the air frantically.

She’s yelling—not exactly screaming, but close enough that it somewhat hurts his sensitive ears as he gets closer to her. Her yelps get cut off though as she catches sight of him, looking incredulous as he grabs hold of her, ignoring her protests.

“Shirou—!” he smothers her into his chest, effectively cutting her off, grumbling low as they near the ground, bracing himself for impact.

He knows it’s going to hurt, but he’ll live. _She_ won’t, if he lets go, so he closes his eyes and focuses on the way the wind knocks them around, and how the setting sun warms his fur.

There are scars. Scars that litter his skin each time he “dies”. Each time he receives a mortal wound.

Burns, cuts, bullets. Like a valley of stars, they map out all over his body.

It doesn’t numb the pain: it never does. But he’s learned to ignore it.

It’s just another part of what he does.

Still, he can’t help the gurgled hiss that escapes him when they crash into the glass of the tower and land gracelessly onto the earth.

All his senses get cut off—just for a second—but he still panics for a long minute before they return to him as if they never left.

He shakes his head—both to get the blood off his face, and to get his bearings.

“Shirou-san! Shirou—” she abruptly gets cut off by him raising his hand, taking in deep breaths (and ignoring how his ribs ache and mend themselves deep in his chest. It’s never a pleasant feeling) and he wonders why he can’t see her until he realizes that his eyes are still closed.

When he opens them and takes in their surroundings, she’s kneeling beside him with worry and fear etched into her eyes, shaking, and he almost, _almost_ asks why she’s looking like that when he realizes that it’d be a stupid question.

She nearly died falling off a building. If he wasn’t himself, if he wasn't _immortal_ —he’s sure that he’d be terrified too.

It doesn’t, though, explain why she’s crying and shaking his shoulders almost angrily, and she looks even more agitated when he voices that thought out loud without particularly meaning to.

 _Probably a concussion,_ a voice that sounds scarily like the mayor echoes in his brain, but he ignores it.

He’s quite good at that.

He also ignores the inspector calling from behind them to get checked over at the Medicen—it’s _fine_ , he won’t _die_ —and stalks back towards the Beast Co-op because honestly, he just wants to collapse on the couch in his office and forget for a moment that he “died”, _again_.

“Shirou!” her voice brings him back to the present and he looks at her, an eyebrow raised.

She’s not shaking anymore, at least. Her eyes are still slightly puffy and red, but she stands firm and grabs his arm, looking, if possible, even more determined than before. “You literally fell. Off a skyscraper of a building.”

Her words are sharp and to the point, and she doesn’t give him a chance to speak. “The inspector is right, you should get checked out,” and maybe he hears a smidge of guilt in her voice, but he shakes his head anyway and keeps trudging forward.

“I won’t die.”

Her exclamation of disbelief is not unwarranted, but still annoying so he turns around to tell her that, but he missteps and the quick turn doesn’t help his already pounding head—

And he blacks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first of many major scene changes!  
> I'm not sure if I've clarified before, but this fic is... my want to paint Michiru and Shirou's relationship even moreso than what was shown in the series. With only twelve episodes, it's hard to showcase how these characters really grow and change... and I wanted to try my hand at illustrating that—and thus, this fic was born.  
> What was originally just a queer-platonic relationship self-indulgent fic about my two favourite characters has become my ideal "if I had the power to rewrite episodes" fic, and uh, well... for those of you that plan to stick around, I hope you enjoy the ride. I'm really excited to show you guys what I have planned, and while I can't promise constant updates, I do want it to be known that I DO want to finish this.  
> I hope you guys are as excited as me to see how this pans out!  
> Thanks so much again for reading <3!


End file.
